Living on the Edge of the World
by PuzzleRaven
Summary: St. Kilda, the edge of the world. Remotest island of the British Isles, cut off by storms for nine months of the year, the last survivors evacuated in 1930. A harsh land, and a hard one. But for those who fled there when the Simurgh hit London, the edge of the world may not be far enough.
1. On the Edge of the World

_St. Kilda, the island at the edge of the world. An archipelago of islands and ocean rocks towering fourteen hundred feet out of the sea, inhabited for two thousand years until the last St. Kildans were evacuated in 1930 in the teeth of the autumn storms and a sickness that killed four. The silent stacks were left to its birds, and its sheep, and their seasonal watchers. And that is how the residents wish it._

The fishing ships were due in, and all bodies were to the work. Moira stood on the rock, overseeing the waves and raised her hands as the dark sea lay flat. The brush of muffled oars drifted over the calm waters, for it was safest in the clogged channels to scull. Too fast, and mariners swiftly learned that here the seafloor had teeth for unwary boats. Low in the water, full- laden, the boats were chased by seabirds and the island would eat well tonight.

She whistled softly, feeling the air thrill, and on the marriage rock a young man leaned forward, allowed himself to overbalance, plummeting towards the sea before wings snaped open at the last second. He swung out, through the crowds of gulls and fulmers that chased the boats, snatching the unwary and wringing their neck on the wing, slinging them into his bag. Skimming the waves, he dropped a full bag on the sands, and wheeled on a wingtip for a second pass.

She felt his passage, allowed the air to bouy him up, as the first of the boats hauled to the beach. The waiting crowd surged forward to unpack. Welcoming the crews could wait until all was stowed and stored. Hirta was a harsh island, no place for those who prized sentiment above survival.

The last of the shallow boats safely on sand, she lowered her hands, let the fog roll in until all that could be seen beyond shore was the ever-present clag that wreathed St. Kilda and the varied wings that danced in it. Shawl gathered tight, she turned to make her way to the beaches, to claim the portion of the fishing that she would salt to take her household through the winter and the excess she could trade for wool to spin.

The fisherman threw the largest of the catch to the waves. None protested as it was pulled down, knowing it was but fair to share their portion with their safety. The waters churned once more, trespassers uninvited by nature itself though it was a month yet until the storms would cut them off naturally for another nine months, as something beneath the waves drew the water down and spat it out in spouts.

Without their neighbours' gifts, the island would not be safe. Without the ungifted's work, their neighbours would not eat. That balance brought no masks, no conflicts among the folk here, for all had to contribute all they had to the only battle that mattered: the ongoing fight against nature itself as it battered them in the small refuge from the world they had carved out here in the remotest isolation. And the fight against the world that wanted them to fight its battles instead.

_St. Kilda, the island at the edge of the world. An archipelago of islands and ocean rocks towering fourteen hundred feet out of the sea, the silent stacks recorded as left to its birds, and its sheep and their seasonal watchers who come no longer for the weather forbids. A harsh land, and a hard one. But for those that now called it home, it was a safe one._


	2. Landed

**Landed**

With the catch landed, the smaller of the boats were grounded, turned, slowly hauled on their ropes and rollers up the slope towards the largest of the blackhouses, once a byre, once a house, now shelter on land to shield boats for the winter. The largest boat rounded the coast, towed by lines that vanished below the waves to a darkness moving beneath them, to the cave where it would shelter.

Preserving and storing must be done against winter, what was plentiful now would be too little later if it spoiled. Salting, curing, smoking, the cut peat was dragged from the many stone cleitean where it had been stored, stacked and lit to start the smokers inside the blackhouse retasked for that duty. Poor quality fuel, it spat and hissed, but the experience of the tenders would settle it enough to serve. The spray climbed the shores, nearing the line of newer houses half a mile inland, and soaking the islanders at their labours. The waves in the bay thundered, breaking before ever they reached the beach, the forerunner without fail of Atlantic storms from the west.

Smoke billowed from the single hole in a blackhouse's turf roof as the peat fires settled to a steady burn, safe from the rising wind. The neat row of pots outside waited to be opened and hung once it had cured, but meat for the near future was already hanging above the fires to smoke. It wasn't what it had been built for, but the long stone house worked for it, and they'd waste nothing here.

Guy crouched on the slope above the shore line, wings mantled against the wind as he plucked and gutted his catch. Plucking was messy trade but brought down for pillows, feathers for quills and bait, and pinions for net needles. The head for stock, the meat for salting, every part of the bird useful save the breath he'd wrung from it. The true irony, that his own shed pinions were more prized than any bird he caught, did not bother him. Tying off the full down bag, he raised a hand giving a quick whistle to draw attention, and threw it to one of the child runners to haul it up to the houses.

Maighread ran past, dusty white from the sea salt she'd scraped from Cullen's traps, to sling a bag of it down by the filleters. She ran back to shore to the salt-traps for the next as Douglass wiped his hands and layered the fish and salt in the stone pot to cure. Sealing the lid, he went on to the next.

"Hist!" The sharp exclamation, half-whistle, half-cry, drew attention to the sky above the inland heights. Beyond, in the fog the other side of the island, the sky was darkening. All knew the warning.

The men hauling the boats hauled faster, the women caught up the fish catch and the birds, hurrying them to the blackhouses and cleitean. The children too small to carry pots scraped the salt from the traps, filling their bags before rain or sea could claim it. The spray was rising, the water in the bay stirring as the coming storm played with tide and wave.

Resettled in the blackhouses, their industry continued uninterrupted. Gutting fish was messy work, best done outside, but not losing their catch to the Atlantic storm was better yet. They had little enough time to save their winter stock.

"Guy!" Stowing the last of his catch-bag in the blackhouse, caught halfway through the low door, he looked to the shout. "There's those on Boreray. Take word!" the old man ordered, and Guy stood, stripping bird's blood from his arms with his hands. There was no arguing with a greybeard here.

"Aye. See my catch safe." As Guy ran up the north slope of the island the elder took his place with the stone paring knife, hook-gutting the first bird with a single move. The innards fell into the bait pots. On Hirta, nothing was wasted.

Beyond the edge of the cliff, the sea was a grey, churning, form masked by the wreathes of fog. He never stopped. Wings wide, he plummeted, swooping onto winds that did not support him as Moira's had but that tried to pull him from the sky. Direction unerring even in the fog, he turned northeast to race the storm across the miles of wild sea to the far isle of Boreray.

So he was not on Hirta when the world turned upside down. Still on Boreray with the stowed meat weathering the last of the storm when the children of Hirta ran to the shore at next light for flotsam. Loading the boat with fleeces and food as the adults on Hirta checked the over-nighted pots for salt-cured meat ready to smoke for winter stores. Aiding with the pulling of oars against storm-tossed seas when the girl Maighread ran back to the busy smokers, to break their industry with her excited cry.

"Mam!, Mam! A boat!"


	3. Treacherous Shores

**Treacherous Shores**

Senga stood from the salting, knife in hand. No other moved a finger from their work, though heads turned to tilt ears in her direction. "The Boreray boat?" she asked the lass.

"Nay, 'tis beached at the end o' Village Bay." The girl hopped foot to foot with excitement as the adults carved and skinned and hung the catch. "And mam, there's a man in it!" The salting slowed, hands working on reflex as the islanders looked up. A silent concensus was reached as Senga spoke.

"Maighread, the bairns-"

"We know, mam," she interrupted, eagerly and insistantly. "We didna go near him, we didna chance the tides. We're watching from the ridge." She gulped as the oldest of the village men stood, the grey-haired man sparing her an acknowledging glance.

"Go get them, girl, tell them to make for Gleann Mor until we say it is safe t'come out." Maighread barely waited to gasp out her reply before she was skidding down the sea-spray-soaked grass towards the shore. The children knew where their bolthole was, well-drilled in the supplies and shelter of the sanctuaries before they could fully walk. "Dr. Richards, Fionnula, Cal, Cam, Fred, Graeme, Douglass, you're with me." As the picked islanders stood, the salting resumed. Whatever the boat may bring, it would not be half the enemy the winter would.

The fisher captain was sitting near the shore, part sheltered by low wall from the spray that washed even this far up the beach. His hands worked dark twine through the torn mesh of a lobster pot, but his head was turned enough that the children, who gathered eagerly where the sand became rocks at the curve of the bay, could see his eye was on them. As the gaggle spied the adults coming, they scattered like ducklings, following Maighread up the slope towards the villages, as exited as they were scared. The adults took the measure of the problem, hidden from the village by the curve of the cliffs. In silent accord Fionn untwined the ropes as Cal began to shuck his coat.

The little boat was clear of the pale sands, lying upturned and snagged by its prow on the low-tide rocks at the end of the bay. It was a garish thing, whites and oranges to the island's greens and browns, impossible to miss if there had been anyone looking. Beneath it, an arm moved limply in the unsettled waves. As the tide rose it would claim both body and boat, and it was on its return now.

They had brought their climbing ropes, the doctor his medicinal bag, and if they all had knives quick to hand that was a fact of island life, not worth mentioning. Roped for birding, Cal leapt out, rock to rock, out to the end of the bay as his brother, Cam, played the ropes out and Fionn's knots bound his safety to his skill.

With a check of the hull, he lashed the prow to his second rope and flipped the boat over onto the water with a heave. It rode high, light, and Douglass and Graeme hauled the ropes to pull it in as it skipped the waves towards shore. The limp body that it had hidden was battered, not clear to see, but Cal crouched and it seemed to move when the waves hit it.

"A live 'un," he hollered, lashing the body's hands to its lifejacket and sliding his head through the ropes to heave it onto his back. More carefully, for his burden had none of Fionn's knots to rely on, he returned cautiously, halting between waves to allow the sea to drop before he jumped. His last jump was a scramble, the ropes that held him pulled taut and Doctor Richards and Fred waded deep into surf to catch them and pull rescuer and rescuee to shore. As Cal staggered to grass, falling to hands and knees to cough up water, the Doctor bent to work on his cargo. If the watching fisherman's hand was by his knife, so were the others.

"He's got a uniform under the lifejacket," Cal gasped, pointing. His brother reached out for the lifejacket zip, and the Doctor knocked his hand away.

"Don't disturb the injuries," he chided, opening his bag for a bottle of antisceptic and clean-carded fleece. They backed away respectfully, knowing better than to disturb the doctor at his work.

"How's the boat?" the Elder asked, as the ropes pulled it up on the sand.

"Looks sound enough," Douglass replied, checking the hull over. "It's a bonny wee thing, but its no place in these seas."

"It's a lifeboat," the fisher captain said, his thick Cornish accent at odds with the Scots around him. He was watching, fingers testing the new weave on the lobster pot across his lap as he spoke.

"Think his ship sunk in the storm?" The spray had reached the houses, the first and worst of the storms for the year, and it foretold a hard winter.

"Aye, and if it did, we'll not be seeing any more of them." The Captain set the lobster pot down and stood, looking the little boat over. "A sail and oars. Might be good for cockling on a really quiet day."

"In the stern," Fred interrupted. With a knowing glance, the Captain reached into the boat, under the ripped canvas cover. Fumbling inside he pulled out a beacon, its light smashed, and raised an eyebrow at Fred. A boot silenced the beacon with a hard thump.

"Dougie, take it up to my place. Might be good for spares," the Captain instructed, and the sandy-haired man scooped it up. "And grab me brandy while your there. Fella might need it."

"And if he's no breathin'?"

"Then I'll have it." The Cornishman hied a boot in the Scot's direction and the younger man dodged and ran, grinning. The Elder watched, disapproving but ignored. "He's breathin, right?"

"Yes." The doctor was carefully cleaning blood from the mask of a face. "Scalp wound. Might have cracked the skull."

"Lot of blood there."

"It looks worse than it is, but that's not saying much." The doctor's tones were clipped, Oxfordian. "And I'll thank you not to give a head wound brandy."

"T'would be a waste," the Captain agreed. "I'll put it in his mouth." The withering glance the doctor gave him rolled off the man like spray from calm seas.

"He's stable enough. Get a stretcher and get him into a house and out of the spray." The doctor's stretcher was two Guernseys inverted, poles through the arms to make the support, but it was enough. The men lifted him, the doctor holding the head straight until the man was settled, and then he was carried with quick efficiency to the nearest of the shingled houses. As Doctor Richards followed them to make sure his patient was properly settled, the Captain loitered, frowning. He looked at Fred, and the man looked back expressionless.

"Kingsman," he said, laconically. Fred let the moment stretch, letting seconds speak instead of words before he uttered his answer.

"Aye." Then he turned for the salting as the Captain went back to the lobster pots. There was ever work to be done, and winter was closing in.


End file.
